Before you toss your iPhone into the proverbial toilet over allegations that the company provided the NSA with a backdoor into its phones … check out All Things Digital. Not only does ATD have Apple’s denial that the company has worked with the NSA to provide a backdoor into iPhones … it has analyzed the damning slide from Der Spiegel.
Here’s another interesting line, which you can read in the original slide below. The initial version requires “close access methods,” which means you have to have physical access to the phone. This would suggest that there’s no way the NSA could be readily installing this on the millions of iPhones around the world and thus spying on them all.
However: The slide goes on to say that future versions of DROPOUTJEEP [would pursue remote installation], which implies over the air, without physical access.
Also important: The slide dates from October, 2008, back when the iPhone was still relatively new and running
on iOS 5 an[a] much earlier version of iOS*. There’s no indication as yet about any efforts by the NSA’s specialized teams in the Access Network Technology, or ANT division about later phones or later operating systems. (corrected)
The original slide was dated 20070108, which is January 8, 2007. The iPhone did not launch until June 2007, so how could there have been a January 2007 slide the focused on the iPhone unless Apple was working with the NSA?
The answer could be as simple as this; an observant commenter noted:
So [Apple] didn’t work with the NSA, but we know they worked with AT&T and those scumbags worked with the NSA.
Also, it’s important to note that all companies accused of collaborating with the NSA use weasel language in their denials.
Rather than getting pissed off at Apple (or AT&T or Microsoft or Google or or or), how about getting pissed of at GWB and an Obama Administration that has walked lockstep — perhaps even expanding the steps — with GWB on domestic snooping? It Is Illegal, folks. See the 4th Amendment.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Just because you can does not mean you should.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com